Because I do my imaging at rather short focal lengths (up to 330mm), I never bother going through the star alignment procedure with my EQ6 as my field of view is quite large and I have a 70mm finder/guider with a flip mirror that allows me to easily find my next target. But the problem is that I have to unlock the shafts when I need to reposition the scope and the damn knobs are hard to find in the dark, so I printed new ones from glow in the dark ABS plastic. I was so happy with the result that I replaced the tripod ones too, which are actually identical to the ones on the mount. Now my gear is starting to look like a Christmas tree but the green glow is too faint to cause problems with dark adaptation.
Anyway, if anyone is interested I can print these for $5 a piece.
Good to hear that I'm not the only one that has had trouble finding those handles/knobs/levers in the dark. Can someone help me with my English? I have big trouble trying to figure out the proper name for them.
Regarding the EQ5, I don't know, but if you take one off and the head of the screw has a square shape 12mm across the flats then they should fit.
Thanks Stefan for your speedy supply ! Just in time for a weekend Star Party here in Tassie tomorrow.
Really pleased with the handles.
Should point out to prospective purchasers that a little tweak was required to get them to fit. This was because the "top quality" EQ5 Chinese engineers were unable to
make square brass bosses ! Unlike Stefan, whose fitting is exactly square !
I simply scraped a little material from all the inside surfaces of the plastic 'star' using a narrow wood chisel as filing the brass boss was too awkward to access.
Thanks Brett for the feedback. I've just come back from VicSouth where I installed half a dozen of these handles on three different mounts and they all went on with a push from my thumb and I have rather small hands. :-) Looks like your mount is not typical because I took a micrometre with me and all the ones I measured were very consistently reading 11.95mm.
Thanks Brett for the feedback. I've just come back from VicSouth where I installed half a dozen of these handles on three different mounts and they all went on with a push from my thumb and I have rather small hands. :-) Looks like your mount is not typical because I took a micrometre with me and all the ones I measured were very consistently reading 11.95mm.
Cheers,
Stefan
Hi Stefan,
nice to hear other mounts are a straight forward fit. As I mentioned my EQ5 is not "finely engineered" !
I was at a Star Party at the weekend and your handles were much admired and makes the mount look a bit special as well.
Cheers,
Brett
All you have to do is PM me with a delivery address and the exact number you want as a set can mean 2 or 5 - depending whether you want the legs of the tripod marked too.
I do have a good range of Bahtinov masks for camera lenses and refractors, so you just need to tell me the filter thread size for the camera lens and the focal length.